How workers lost their jobs – and their nobility

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Over 60 years the nature of work has changed. This is Labour’s moment to extol the virtues of its name

The class-bound nature of British life is still locked into our language. The
word nobility describes a virtue and, at the same time, locates it in a
social class. The word aristocracy has slipped its original meaning to
define the high-born as the best. The unemployment figures this week told us
that one million young people are out of work. This is the third generation
in the demise of the aristocracy of labour.

The man of the first generation left school in 1952 to start his new job just
as Her Majesty started hers. The school gates opened to let